1,201 Responses to Monday Forum: February 25, 2019

Stimpy, whether I have a soul or not depends on what you think a soul is. If you think it is an immortal, immaterial entity which looks out of your eyes and listens through your ears, no, I don’t have one. Neither does anyone else. If you mean soul in the sense of “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul”, then I do have a big hairy one.

No one is aborting four cells.
Abortions are of a human consisting of trillions of quickly specialising cells that contain all the information for, and are in the rapid process of becoming a unique human being such as yourself.
When you abort that person, they are gone from this world forever.

You are right in one respect, I should not have said that you cited doctrine. I should have said you consistently follow it.

But that would have made no sense where the allegation is made.

The argument that the foetus is fully human we have gone through before. I pointed out that you wished to get to the conclusion that aborting the process at four cells is a bad thing to do. In general, I agree.

Can you be partly human? The foetus is obviously a human being because we were all fetuses during our early stage of development.

In order to get to that conclusion, you assert that four cells is a human being. As I pointed out before, Jo or Joe Everidge have a clear idea of what a human being is, and four cells ain’t it.

Not at all. The fact that Jo and Joe Everidge countenance an abortion at 4 weeks or the day after conception is because both know she carries a human being in its earliest stage of development and both will be obligated to care for the child if she does nothing further.

When you assure them that they are wrong, they quite rightly reject your major premiss as metaphysical bullshit.

I can safely set this aside given what I say above.

I do not assert that there is some definite time at which the foetus becomes human. We simply do not have enough precision in natural language for that to make sense.

Please, the fetus is a human being at an early stage of development. You are attempting to avoid this conclusion with specious reasons.

… I shall howl gigantic curses on mankind:
Ha! Eternity! She is an eternal grief …
Ourselves being clockwork, blindly mechanical,
Made to be the foul-calendars of Time and Space,
Having no purpose save to happen, to be ruined,
So that there shall be something to ruin …
If there is a something which devours,
I’ll leap within it, though I bring the world to ruins-
The world which bulks between me and the Abyss
I will smash to pieces with my enduring curses.
I’ll throw my arms around its harsh reality:
Embracing me, the world will dumbly pass away,
And then sink down to utter nothingness,
Perished, with no existence – that would be really living!

You seem to be gradually coming around to a reasonable formulation. If you can agree that a pile of bricks, while not actually a house, may develop into one, we are practically there.

Dr BG, that’s a pretty piss-poor analogy. A pile of bricks may turn into a house, a brick shithouse, a bbq, a fence, a cathedral etc.
That little pile of cells can only turn into a human (from conception on).
You can do better than that.

Stimpy, whether I have a soul or not depends on what you think a soul is. If you think it is an immortal, immaterial entity which looks out of your eyes and listens through your ears, no, I don’t have one. Neither does anyone else. If you mean soul in the sense of “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul”, then I do have a big hairy one.

… I shall howl gigantic curses on mankind:
Ha! Eternity! She is an eternal grief …
Ourselves being clockwork, blindly mechanical,
Made to be the foul-calendars of Time and Space,
Having no purpose save to happen, to be ruined,
So that there shall be something to ruin …
If there is a something which devours,
I’ll leap within it, though I bring the world to ruins-
The world which bulks between me and the Abyss
I will smash to pieces with my enduring curses.
I’ll throw my arms around its harsh reality:
Embracing me, the world will dumbly pass away,
And then sink down to utter nothingness,
Perished, with no existence – that would be really living!

Dr BG, that’s a pretty piss-poor analogy. A pile of bricks may turn into a house, a brick shithouse, a bbq, a fence, a cathedral etc.
That little pile of cells can only turn into a human (from conception on).
You can do better than that.

Yes. I should have said a pile of bricks and stuff together with an architect’s plan of the house.

Beaugan still doesn’t know the difference between development and construction. Dear God, a grown man in such wilful denial. One almost expects that Beaugan has agreed to kill a couple of his children by abortion in his time and needs to perpetuate the lie that they weren’t human in order to appease his guilty conscience. Do no wonder how Pell’s jury could just ignore the evidence before their noses. Beaugan is exhibit A in wilful denial of truth.

Prance about town in a Top Hat and tails? Speaking with a “”Plum in your mouth” with that New Zealand accent isn’t exactly an option. What happens if you have to pronounce the word “six”? High society won’t be too impressed.

I don’t need to do anything.
After you die, it’s mine, to do with as I wish.
You should probably take a bit of time to think about it though.
You know, a cooling off period.

It’s a deal Stimpy. You pay me $50, now, and I leave you my soul in my will. Unless someone even dafter than you makes a better offer.

Cough up.

I’m surprised you’re daft enough to take the idea seriously, but exploiting your silly superstition is good for you. I don’t need time to think about it. Get my email address from Sinc and I’ll give you a postal address to send me $50.

‘We did not sign up to develop weapons’: Hundreds of Microsoft workers protest $480m HoloLens reality headset deal with the U.S. military
-Microsoft employees have circulated a letter addressed to company bosses arguing they should not supply HoloLens technology to the US military
-Microsoft has unveiled a next-generation AR headset available for workers
-Company was awarded the contract to supply ‘Integrated Visual Augmentation System’ prototypes to the US military in November
-They could eventually deliver over 100,000 headsets under the contract
-Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality technology allows users to see the world around them, but with virtual graphics overlaid
-The Israeli military, which has already taken delivery of some HoloLens headsets
-Technology could be used to help commanders visualize the battlefield and field medics to consult doctors

Ritual. Tradition. Order. In 1996 Sunday solemn mass at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral represented all of these things to the outside observer.

A procession into the cathedral with altar boys, the sacristan, the choristers two-by-two, boys and men, in red and white robes and, of course, the archbishop.

A homily; hymns honouring the Lord; the acceptance of communion, Christ’s body and blood.

Local worshippers, foreign pilgrims, tourists murmuring “amen” and “peace be with you”. And ­afterwards the archbishop again, outside the cathedral, pressing the flesh and kissing babies.

In 1996 it was the newly ­appointed archbishop George Pell who stood on the cathedral steps in East Melbourne, clad in his long robes, the smock-like alb, an ­ornate tunic known as a chasuble above it, a stole over the shoulders, and tied with a cincture.

The tall mitre on his head added gravitas as he spoke to ­parishioners.

It was in this most holy of places, after the Catholic faith’s most sacred ritual, that Pell was found to have committed a sex attack on two 13-year-old choirboys that could see him jailed for more than 10 years.

One of the boys, now in his 30s, claimed mass was followed by what he called in court “an ­anomaly”, what police officers and prosecutors call “rape”.

Pell was charged in June 2017 and was committed to stand trial in May last year.

A jury deliberated for a week in September over whether Australia’s most senior Catholic had raped a child, but couldn’t reach a majority verdict.

A second jury took 3½ days in December to find Pell guilty of one count of sexual penetration of a child under the age of 16 and four counts of an indecent act with a child under the age of 16.

The first four charges were based around the assault of two teenage choristers who had “nicked off” from procession, snuck into the priests’ sacristy and were swigging the sacramental wine.

“The wine was in, like, a dark-brown-stain bottle,” one of the boys told the court.

“We were excited, feeling mischievous.

“We found the bottle and we opened it and started having a couple of swigs out of it.”

One of the boys subsequently died without making a complaint to police.

The court heard he had denied ever being “interfered with or touched up” when questioned by his mother in 2001.

The surviving chorister, however, gave evidence against Pell.

“(Pell) planted himself in the doorway and said something like ‘What are you doing here?’ or ‘You’re in trouble’,” the chorister said.

“There was this moment where we all just sort of froze and then he undid his trousers or his belt, like he started moving underneath his robes.

“He pulled (my friend) aside and then he pulled out his penis and then grabbed (my friend’s) head.”

The chorister said his friend was “sort of crouched” and “sort of flailing around”, squirming and struggling while one of Pell’s hand’s was around his friend’s head and shoulders.

“(My friend’s) head was being controlled and it was down near Archbishop Pell’s genitals.

“I couldn’t see his penis at that time.”

The chorister told the court he said something like: “Can you let us go? We didn’t do anything.”

He said Pell then turned to him and pushed his penis in the boy’s mouth.

“I was pushed down and crouching or kneeling,” the chorister said.

“Archbishop Pell was standing. He was erect and he pushed it into my mouth.”

The chorister said Pell then told the boy to take off his pants.

“Then he started touching my genitalia, masturbating or trying to do something with my ­genitalia,” the chorister told the court.

“Archbishop Pell was touching himself on his penis with his other hand.”

The chorister said the boys didn’t yell during the abuse or after. “I made some objections,” he said.

“We got up and left the room and went back into the chorale changeroom area.”

A second incident occurred weeks later when Pell pushed the boy against a wall and touched him in an incident lasting two or three seconds.

“I saw him and he pushed himself up against me on a wall and he squeezed my genitalia, my ­testicles, my penis,” the chorister said.

“Nothing was said … he squeezed and kept walking.”

The chorister said he didn’t tell anyone of the assaults at the time because he didn’t want to jeopardise his school scholarship, which was contingent on being in the choir.

“I didn’t caution (my friend) about watching out for what Archbishop Pell might do because I had no intention back then of telling anyone ever,” he said.

“I was young and I didn’t really know what had happened to me. I didn’t really know what it was, if it was normal.”

Central to the case was whether the two choirboys, and Pell himself, could have slipped into the priest’s sacristy, a changeroom and storeroom, where the attack took place, without being seen.

Gibson and high-profile defence barrister Robert Richter QC pressed former choirboys and church officials on whether Pell was ever alone in the cathedral and whether choristers could sneak away from procession.

Former choirboy David Dearing said rules were relaxed after the mass once the choir passed out of public view.

“Once we hit that gate it was like game on to get out of there and go home,” he told the court.

“It happened in that point because we were out of public view and it wasn’t necessarily needing to be as military-like, if you could put it that way.”

Dearing’s father, Rodney, was also in the choir and said people would have noticed two boys running off with their robes on.

“The choir dress is very distinctive,” he said. “You’d notice two boys and, if they were running off with their robes on, you’d very quickly notice them.”

But he also said the choristers bunched up as they neared a rear building and from a point near there “I couldn’t see half the choir”.

Organist Geoffrey Cox said former brother Peter Finnigan kept a watchful eye on the choristers.

“The entire choir usually returned together to the rehearsal room. If anyone wished to leave from there, maybe to go to the toilet, they would seek permission,” he said.

“(The rules) were observed because it was a disciplined group.”

Former choirmaster John Mallinson told the court he wouldn’t have known if Pell had moved back inside the cathedral following a Sunday solemn mass.

“If I was playing the organ, I would not be aware of anything else going on in the cathedral,” he said.

He said he saw Pell in the sacristy corridor on his own and ­accompanied, both robed and disrobed. “I’ve seen him both ways, for instance, after he’d gone to the sacristy and disrobed and he’d be in his normal clerical garb.”

Monsignor Charles Portelli, who served at the time as master of ceremonies, told the court he ­recalled only twice in five years not assisting Pell to robe and disrobe.

The jury heard details of Pell’s attire during mass and had to consider if he able to easily push aside the heavy garments and sexually assault the two boys.

The robes included the alb, an ankle-length white under-tunic, which included a slit for ­access to pockets, and a cincture which was a rope that knotted around the waist to prevent the alb moving.

“When he went to the toilet, for example, what would one do wearing an alb?” Gibson asked.

“Well you just don’t,” Portelli replied.

Sacristan Max Potter told the court it would be “inhumanly possible” for Pell to have exposed himself while wearing the ceremonial robes.

“The alb is tied with a cincture and locked in and it can’t be moved,” Potter said.

“The cincture ties around his waist, and then with the cincture then a stole is placed over, in that area as well, and no way could the alb be moved in that area.”

Potter said Pell wore a decorative chasuble and dalmatic on top of the vestments on particularly solemn occasions.

“The weight of those vestments are not light,” he said.

Potter said someone always helped Pell disrobe, but under questioning from Gibson admitted he couldn’t categorically say someone else had been with Pell the entire time the archbishop was in the cathedral.

“I’m not going to say I saw them every time,” he said.

Potter went on to say ­that ­sacramental wine was sometimes left out between masses and could be accessible to anyone coming through the sacristy.

“It would be a rare occasion,” Potter said.

Pell did not give evidence in the trial, as is his right as the accused.

Instead the court saw a recording of the cardinal’s police interview in Rome in 2016 when he first became aware of the detail of the allegations.

The jurors watched the screen in courtroom 4.3 as Pell described the accusations as “madness”.

“It’s vile and disgusting conduct contrary to everything I hold dear,” he said.

“And contrary to the explicit teachings of the church, which I have spent my life ­representing.”

Pell told police the master of ceremonies, Portelli, was always with him after the ceremonies until they were back in the carpark or presbytery.

“The sacristy after mass is generally a hive of activity,” Pell said.

“You could scarcely imagine a place that was more unlikely to be committing paedophilia crimes than a sacristy at the cathedral after mass.”

In his closing, Gibson said the victim knew details about the priest’s sacristy, including ­recollections of wood panelling and an alcove where the wine was kept.

He said the chorister was ­simply a person who was doing the best he could to describe what happened when he was a ­teenager.

“What we submit to you is that he was not a person indulging in a fantasy or imagining things … to the point where he now believed his own imagination mind,” Gibson said.

“But rather was simply telling it as it was and is.”

Richter, however, derided the victim’s evidence as “fanciful”.

“Who in their right mind would take the risk of doing what (the ­victim) says happened?” Richter said.

“There is no support by a single witness for (the victim’s) version of events.”

He said it was impossible for the acts to have occurred in the six-minute window described because of the number of adults moving around the cathedral, impossible for the choirboys to have snuck away, impossible for Pell to have been alone, and impossible for him to part his robes to expose his penis.

Chief Judge Peter Kidd warned the jury not to “scapegoat” the archbishop.

“You mustn’t in any way be influenced by knowledge you might have of childhood sexual abuse in the Catholic Church or cover-ups of abuse in the Catholic Church,” he said.

Less than four days later the jury found Pell guilty of the ­charges of child sexual abuse.

Cardinal George Pell has been falsely convicted of sexually abusing two boys in their early teens.

That’s my opinion, based on the overwhelming evidence.

And my opinion is also based in part on how many times Pell has been accused of crimes and sins he clearly did not do.

But at last some of the truckload of mud thrown at him has stuck.

It adds up to this: Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, has been made to pay for the sins of his church and a media campaign of vilification.

He is a scapegoat, not a child abuser. In my opinion.

Declaration: I have met Pell perhaps five times in my life and like him. I am not a Catholic or even a Christian.
But here is why I cannot believe this verdict, which clearly shocked reporters when first announced (but suppressed) last year, and which Pell is appealing as unsound.

You are meant to believe that Pell in the mid-1990s found the two choir boys in St Patrick’s cathedral’s sacristy drinking altar wine just after a Mass at which Pell had officiated.

You are meant to believe that Pell forced one boy to give him oral sex while grabbing the other, and also molesting them both.

Here is why I don’t believe this gothic story — or not enough to think this conviction reasonable.

One of the boys, now dead, denied he’d been abused.

The other, whose identity and testimony remain secret, didn’t speak of it for many years.

The attack is meant to have happened straight after Mass, when Pell is known to have traditionally spoken to worshippers leaving Mass.

It allegedly happened in the sacristy, normally a very busy room, where Pell would have known people were almost certain to walk in.

The boys had allegedly slipped away from the procession after Mass to break into the sacristy, but none of the other choristers who gave evidence said they’d noticed them doing so, or noticed them rejoining the choir later.

Pell was normally followed everywhere during and after Mass by the master of ceremonies, Monsignor Charles Portelli, who testified that he escorted the then Archbishop from the moment he arrived at the cathedral, until the moment he left. He declared the assault impossible.

Not a single witness from what was a busy cathedral at the time of the alleged abuse noticed a thing during the estimated 10 minutes of this alleged attack.

There is no history or pattern of similar abuse by Pell, unlike with real church paedophiles such as Gerald Ridsdale who raped or assaulted at least 65 children. Pell was 55 years old at the time of alleged abuse.

No wonder that a first jury failed to convict Pell. I am unable to tell you just how very close it came to acquitting him before it was discharged as deadlocked.

On top of that, the man I know seems not just incapable of such abuse, but so intelligent and cautious that he would never risk his brilliant career and good name on such a mad assault in such a public place.

There will be many people who’d angrily respond that we should always believe the victims, or at least believe this one.

Why would anyone make a false allegation?

But Pell has been accused very often of serious offences by people who were plainly wrong.

Maybe they misremembered. Maybe they had the wrong guy.

Or maybe they were looking for someone to pay for some past trauma, and chose the man that the media has vilified ever since he emerged as the Church’s most articulate — and conservative — advocate in this country.

Those false or plainly flimsy allegations include:

Several allegations dropped during the committal process after being shown to be wrong or too weak to even put to any jury.

For instance, he was accused of abusing someone at a Ballarat screening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1978 — six months before the film actually came to the city.

Allegations that Pell fondled boys in a swimming pool in the 1970s when tossing children off his shoulders.

Prosecutors today dropped their case — run separately to the one that’s had Pell found guilty — as hopeless.

A claim by a witness to the royal commission on child sex abuse that he’d knocked at the door of Pell’s Ballarat presbytery four decades ago to warn him of a paedophile priest. Pell actually lived miles away, and almost invariably worked in his college office at that time of day.

Another claim by a witness that he’d told Pell in Ballarat of an abusive priest. Pell’s passport showed he was living and studying in Europe that year.

A claim by David Ridsdale, later an abuser himself, that Pell tried to bribe him to stop him telling police he’d been abused by his uncle, notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale. The ABC promoted this claim, but the royal commission’s counsel assisting said the evidence does not support it.

Pell has survived so many fake allegations. Now he has fallen for one of the most unlikely of all.

In my opinion, this is our own OJ Simpson case, but in reverse. A man was found guilty not on the facts but on prejudice.

Yesterday’s decision re Cardinal Pell, where he lost despite apparently having 25 witnesses to none, is a grim and dangerous turning point that forces us to remember a few unpleasant facts.

Almost every major crime against humanity was committed by the State. Almost every poor soul sent to the gulag was sent there by a judge. Almost every poor J3w rounded up by the Nazis in Germany was rounded up by a policeman. In almost every one of these cases the process of persecution and oppression was loudly supported by state owned media. In almost every one of these cases public hysteria was created by vocal opinion makers and academics who supported the persecution.

Regardless of what you think about Pell, you should be very concerned that there was no check in the system at any point to ensure justice was done. I hope you are not the next person unable to demomstrate reasonable doubt when you have 25 witnesses to none.

The latest from Tim Blair (apologies if someone has already posted this):

AN INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE YOU CAN TRUST
Tim Blair, The Daily Telegraph
February 26, 2019 9:58pm
Subscriber only
Prior to the official launch of my 2019 Senate election campaign, last week I toured inland NSW in search of all the important issues.

Kidding!

I was actually with Daily Telegraph cartoonist Warren Brown and photographer Toby Zerna, rolling down from the Queensland border to the Murray River. Why? No particular reason, but we did get some nice pictures.

Much thanks to Nissan for their kind loan of an X-Trail, which had no business at all being so competent on roads that aren’t exactly suitable for an urban SUV. That little guy just kept on barging through dirt, sand, rocks and – on one memorable occasion – a suicidally aggressive western brown snake.

Warren was at the wheel. I accept no responsibility for his anti-reptile hostility. Stories to follow in a week or so.

More survivors tipped to speak up in wake of George Pell’s guilty verdict
CHANEL KINNIBURGH, Mercury
February 26, 2019 11:22pm
Subscriber only

…

Former Catholic priest and Gay with God author Julian Punch, who studied with Pell at Corpus Christi College in Victoria, agreed the church would be hit with a new wave of complaints about senior bishops.

Mr Punch said the findings against Pell would shake the spirituality of those committed to the church and make them question their faith.

“They’re going to be severely challenged by this. Denial can no longer be entertained by people, it’s come to an end,” Mr Punch said.

“Pell oppressed two generations of Catholics with his conservative theology and his treatment of victims of sexual assault has been absolutely appalling.”

Question: How does the first time author of a self-published book get to do a 30 minute interview with Jane Hutcheon on the ABC TV One Plus One program? Answer: Make your inaugural work an attack on the Catholic Church in general and Cardinal George Pell in particular. That’s how. And so it came to pass that Gay with God: The life and times of a turbulent priest ran on One Plus One on 8 September 2017. The producers were Tanya Nolan and Annie White. Ms Hutcheon asked six questions about George Pell – despite the fact that Julian Punch and George Pell have not met for over half a century.

Two sickening and utterly vile imbeciles heavily featured in the Oz – that despicable slag Keneally gloating about the Pell travesty and that obnoxious imbecilic rodent Piggy Howes mouthing off about the preposterous scam that is superannuation, from his position as a yoonyun plant in that hive of professional parasites, KPMG.

I’m now firmly of the opinion that we are truly cursed with the most inexcusable, blatantly corrupt and disgusting public figures of any country in the Western world. Any list of them would initially appear to be endless.

Oh good grief is piggy howEs back? Has he cheated on his current squeeze yet? I’m quite happy with my decision not to give a single red sent to any mainstream media outlets. I refuse to fund fuckwits and Lynch mobs.

He dropped it because it was a rigged back-up to be used only if Pell was acquitted. That and the fact that the swimming pool accusers are a former convict (jailed for bashing a woman) and a drug-dealer. Interestingly. like the sacristy charges police could not find one single witness from those pool days to support the claims. The swimming pool owner told police the allegations were laughable horseshit.

Former Catholic priest and Gay with God* author Julian Punch, who studied with Pell at Corpus Christi College in Victoria, agreed the church would be hit with a new wave of complaints about senior bishops …

“They’re going to be severely challenged by this. Denial can no longer be entertained by people, it’s come to an end,” Mr Punch said.

I love how Australia’s sodomists are pretending to be courageous “denial” whisperers even as they refuse to admit that 90 percent of clerical sexual abuse was committed by homosexuals. They are the ones in denial. Fortunately, they are now banned from seminaries.
————
*LOL.

St Patrick’s in Melbourne hired security overnight, wisely. This morning two individuals decorated the fence with fake crime scene tape. When security tried to remove it there was a dispute. Six cops arrived and the protestors escorted elsewhere. There will be a lot more of this. Whenever the Cardinal does his perp walk outside court there is a middle-aged man who keeps screaming ‘Go to Hell, Pell’ etc. He is allowed to approach within a couple of meters. He’s deranged.

Spectators clutching Vietnamese, North Korean and US flags crammed the pavements in the old district for the last leg of the journey, where the motorcade was accompanied by an armoured car with a machine gunner perched on the top.

Trump arrived on Tuesday night on Air Force One after refuelling stops at RAF Mildenhall in the UK and Qatar. Thousands of people, some holding bunches of flowers and Vietnamese flags, turned out to watch his motorcade drive along a dark and closed-off highway into the capital.

..

At a salon across town, Le Tuan Duong, a barber, has been offering novelty Kim and Trump haircuts, and has transformed 400 men into lookalikes since last week. Most had been Kims, he said, though there were also a few Hanoians walking around town with a blond Trumpian shock on their crowns.

Both men were admirable role models, the hairdresser said. “These two leaders, they love peace.”

Now be honest Beaugan.
Stop being easive.
Answer the question. Do this thought experiment:
Imagine a woman eating a placenta. Imsgine a woman eating an early second trimester baby.
Close your eyes and imagine it in exact, step- wise detail.
Now tell us which of the menu item causes you most disgust.
Now reflect and give an honest reason for your answer to part one.

Janet Albrechtsen has a useful article about Julie Bishop in the Oz. It includes:

On that note, a book arrived in the mail last week, called On Merit. Author Paula Matthewson excitedly proclaims that a “red” rebellion is under way. Red because Bishop wore red shoes when she resigned as foreign minister and then other Liberal women wore “crimson jackets, dresses and heels” to signal their fury at the 11 votes she attracted.

The essay reads like angry fashion blogger turns gender activist, demanding quotas and asserting, over and over again, that merit is a sham.

Matthewson shows no understanding of why, after 20 years in politics, Bishop attracted meagre support from her colleagues. Or that a red rebellion is the low road to mediocrity for Australian politics.

and

Perhaps the red rebels need reminding again that Margaret Thatcher was British prime minister for almost 12 years and Helen Clark led New Zealand for nine, and neither needed a red rebellion or quotas to succeed. Was their merit a sham?

My comment to the Oz is:

Very true. Who cares what shoes Bishop wore?

Which is the same argument about how many women etc should represent us in Parliament. It is a logical fallacy.

If we follow this down it therefore says we should have 15% of a political party should be older than 60, as 15% of the population is.

And what’s more if the average age of a population moves north – to 65 – or south to 55; then so too the number of politicians should change too.

Where should we stop? A set number of Asian-Australians? Number of gay politicians? Number of disabled politicians?

In the end you must come back to merit is the basis for selection, and promotion. And so goodbye Julie Bishop. All hat, no cattle.

Today is the day Catholics need to decide where they stand. When the conversation turns to Pell do they keep quiet, condemn him or as I will be doing point out the many many issues with the evidence of the case and the legal process and previous jury vote etc.

I am not a Catholic .

Unfortunately any public figure questioning the evidence is going to be accused of condoning a sex offender.

..
The potential to gene edit and then use babies as spare parts to keep the beautiful people alive is just there, on the cusp of achievement, if only they can get us to give up our “silly superstitions” and overcome our primitive disgust reactions to perfectly sensible Moloch worship.

“Mother Lode
#2944865, posted on February 27, 2019 at 9:49 am
I read somewhere that Oliver Hardy went on a strict diet to improve his health and prospects of longevity but that, sadly, the stress of it all killed him.

Don’t know if that is true.

I also heard that Stanley Laurel was asked in later years if he would do a performance for one thing or another, and he always declined saying that he really just didn’t feel like it without Hardy.”

In 1963 Laurel was asked to appear in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” which had a stellar line up of stars…a movie which I watched again last year and was on the floor laughing…..it is hysterical……Laurel refused saying “He did not want to be on screen in his old age, especially without Hardy.”

At Laurel’s funeral, silent screen comedian Buster Keaton said, “Chaplin wasn’t the funniest, I wasn’t the funniest, this man was the funniest”.

Not sure if I want to see a sad movie of Laurel and Hardy as some of their stuff was so funny. Their short movies, guessing about 20 minutes long, were great. It’s the build of tension and the look on Ollie’s face as he’s wondering what Stan is up to that was pure genius.

I remember the Chamberlain case pretty well – was working for the ABC as a part-time researcher at the time and saw all of the information coming in.

The pile-on was remarkable. “Everyone” thought she was guilty. And so she was sent off to jail; her husband was sentenced as well, and their lives were destroyed.

And then over time a few brave people came out questioning the evidence, and showing how flawed it was.

After a while the tide of public opinion began to turn, and eventually “everyone” was against the Chamberlain verdict. Nowadays it’s rare to find people who will admit to a) they were convinced she was guilty, and b) they are still convinced.

Watch this space, and see what Australia thinks of poor Pell in 10 years.

Poached menstrual discard.
I was going to make googy eggs and dip my toast soldiers into the menstrual discard, but I thought nah, just spread your menstrual discard over the toast, with it being still just a bit runny.
Because of course, I like my menstrual discard a bit runny.

I still believe that Chamberlain went to jail so as to keep the truth about camp dogs from getting out there.

They were the fearless scavengers and they were right there, on that side of the rock in those days and were a real problem.
Actual dingos never came in too close on that side of the rock, although it wasn’t uncommon to see them at the base of the climb etc, on the other side, due to starving, mangy, ill treated camp dogs roaming in packs.